Following BSP chief Mayawati’s pitch for Muslim votes, the BJP on Sunday accused her of “communalising” the Uttar Pradesh election, claiming that the real agenda of the polls would be development.

“She is a big zero on the politics of development. Now she is communalising state politics. But the poll agenda will remain development, on which ruling SP, BSP and Congress have nothing to offer. For development, people will vote for the BJP,” BJP national secretary Shrikant Sharma said.

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Referring to Mayawati’s earlier accusation that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had not fulfilled the promises made during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Sharma said, “The Modi government will give an account of its works in 2019. It has launched more than 80 schemes aimed at the welfare of the poor. The UP government has failed to execute them. In his two-and-a-half-year tenure, the Prime Minister’s credibility has only grown due to his work, which has brought India laurels from across the world.”

The BJP leader asked Mayawati to refrain from speaking on the surgical strikes across the LoC, saying there was a lot of enthusiasm among people over the Army’s action against terrorism. “She does politics in the name of Dalits but her love is for daulat (money). There are reports of tickets being sold and also her arrogance. This is the reason why people rejected her in 2012 and her public base is shifting, that is why the frustration is making her lash out at the PM,” Sharma told The Indian Express.

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On CM Akhilesh Yadav’s references to Mayawati as bua (aunt), he said that between the aunt and nephew, Uttar Pradesh administration had collapsed, but Mayawati was training her guns on the PM because “she cannot digest his popularity. She talks of Dalits but during her chief ministership there were 30,000 cases of Dalit atrocities and 1,074 Dalits were killed,” Sharma said.

Another BJP spokesperson, Meenakshi Lekhi, said Mayawati does politics of casteism that comes within communal politics. “BJP does politics of communal harmony, not the politics of communalism or casteism. The people doing such casteist or communal politics should correct themselves rather than raising questions about us,” she said.

In Lucknow, UP BJP chief Keshav Prasad Maurya said Mayawati was “shedding crocodile tears” on public issues in view of the upcoming polls.

Echoing Shrikant Sharma, Maurya said the BSP chief was trying to divert the attention of people from failures of the UP government run by her “nephew” (Akhilesh) by blaming BJP-led central government on the issues of law and order, road, power, water, and excise, which fall in jurisdiction of the state government.

He said Mayawati was raising questions on foreign and defence policies of the Centre either because she was unaware with positive results of these policies or she wa